Floating Fortress
Originally published on December 22nd, 2012 by Dimitri Bouniol. #FNADNST
Continuation of Magic Stones, originally published on December 15th, 2012.
Danny laid there in the sand.
Before he realized it, he had grown a few inches, and was now taller than Diana.
More importantly though, he had been training every day.
He had travelled with Diana all over the place in preparation for the siege of the Cross of the Bloody Saints' headquarters.
They were better hidden than they had originally thought…
The found several bases, thinking that they finally found them, but they were either filled with weaklings he could beat with his fists alone, or completely deserted.
It was only until last month that they discovered that the actual headquarters was atop a floating fortress high up in the sky.
In fact, they had just returned to this beach minutes ago in preparation of the siege.
The weather was so nice out, that he simply wanted to collapse in the sand!
This calm sensation was broken by Diana yelling at him to get up though.
She was right though. If they spent any extra time dilly dallying, who knows who might be suffering at their hands.
He quickly got up, and started running across the coast, searching for the cabin that they had stayed in when he had just met her.
Diana watched him run off, and simply smiled while she continued on her own pace.
She had finally caught up with Danny, but she wasn't expecting the sight before her.
Danny was sitting in the sand, next to a destroyed cabin.
Running over, she asked what happened, and Danny explained that two members of the Cross of the Bloody Saints had waited for them to appear.
Although Danny was able to deal with them, they were indeed strong, and thus the cabin ended up in this sorry shape.
What they weren't expecting though, is that the Cross of the Bloody Saints had actually set up a much bigger trap for them.
Before, they had a lot of difficulty tracking down Diana as a treat to their existence, but now that they had a clue to not only her location but also the location of the Stone of Awakening, they staged two pawns there just to make sure.
Upon their defeat, the fortress immediately started to make way to Diana’s location, ready to finish up their work.
Unaware of all this, Diana and Danny were trying to pillage what they could to build a file for the night.
To say that they were unprepared for an attack would however be an understatement.
They calmly finished their dinner, which consisted of easily caught fish from the sea thanks to Diana’s many water-based stones.
Every now and then they would joke around at how lucky they were to have survived up until now.
Danny unfortunately still didn’t know anything about where he had come from, but he instead stated to feel at home in this different world.
The weird food he ate, the battles he fought — they all became parts of him that he rather cherished.
And because of that, he felt at home now.
So when they tried to destroy the land that he now felt was his home, he became quite agitated.
And for them to stealthily attack while they sat there defenseless would anger him even more.
They quickly reacted to the stealth attack formed by spears falling from the cliff above, which shifted their attention to the shadow of the fortress formed by the moonlight behind it.
Instead of feeling surprised by the sudden appearance, they were quite pleased that they didn’t have to track it down themselves.
With a smile across his face, Danny closed his eyes and slowly started to recite an incantation.
Once he finished, both of them slowly rose up, as if carried by the wind, to the castle above them.
Diana had taught him that sometimes putting a thought into words made it more focussed, and therefore reinforced the image in the brain.
This made a stone’s power even stronger, and could be used for much more complex attacks.
As they rose up, Diana performed a similar incantation, with both her right and left arms held in front of her.
With a violent roar, a stream of fire and water erupted like two dragons twirling around each other aimed directly for the castle.
The two steams were quick to destroy the wall, giving them a clear path into the fortress.
However, it was odd. Something was off.
There was not a single person there to greet them.
Almost all the members had seemed to either run away from their fearsome attack or were killed by it.
Danny thought that if it was like this, they could easily win this war.
However, taken by the rage of wanting revenge, Diana ran in without warning searching for any survivors.
Blind by her rage, she was unable to see the bolt of electricity that rained down on her, instantly defeating her.
As she fell to the ground, tens of shadows stared appearing all around them.
One after another, they raced to her body ready to deal the final blow.
Danny was faster though, promptly defeating every one of them.
The member that stood at the very top wasn’t too pleased though.
He quickly sent another bolt of electricity to Danny, but having been used to blocking, Danny put up a single hand in front of him.
This was, however, powerless compared to the electricity flying at him, hitting him hard.
This caused him to almost black out, but a voice inside of him told him to get up.
That’s right, he couldn’t let the stone fall into their hands.
Those weren’t his thoughts though. Those belonged to the stone.
What Danny wanted was different: Not to let Diana fail here, and to defeat them.
With this resolve, he stood up and defeated one by one the fighters that were sent his way.
The one at the top seemed to be waiting for him to exhaust himself though,
So Danny decided that he needed to defeat him directly.
Putting up a shield of wind around him, he recited another incantation, which threw him up to the mastermind behind this organization like a bullet.
The impact on the ground below him blew away the weaklings that were attacking him, while the impact above nearly destroyed the ceiling.
He got a good view of this monster that was at the top of the Cross of the Bloody Saints, but without warning another bolt of electricity went flying towards him.
It hit him mid air, but the anger that swelled inside of him kept his body moving.
Danny slowly walked over to the leader, taking onslaught after onslaught of attacks, getting closer and closer to this individual who was getting more and more frightened by what would happen if Danny reached him.
When he did, Danny put both of his arms on the leader’s shoulders, pulled his own head back, and with the last of his energy, head butted him straight in the nose, dealing a final blow as if it was nothing.
Upon doing so, he collapsed on the ground beside his dead enemy.
Danny awoke in a rather unusual place.
A school chime woke him up, reviling his location to be a bathroom.
Around him were a bunch of knocked out students that had once picked on him, but that seemed to have happened ages ago.
Suddenly remembering his fight, he worried about Diana.
He was unable to save her, and before he could do anything, his past life had caught up with him and stolen him back.
He got up and looked straight into a mirror to reveal his previous young face covered in bruises.
There was no sight of the stone in his forehead.
Sighing at the possibility that it was all just a bad dream, he wondered how all the other bullies had ended up beat up themselves.
He reached out to turn on the water in the sink next to him, and in a useless effort to clean himself up, he brought water up to his face, revealing a bracelet with a blue stone embedded in it.
Diana had never taken this amulet off, so for him to have it meant one thing — she was alive.
So relieved, he started crying. It was all real after all, all those experiences during those years of travels he endured.
Suddenly remembering that the stone had power, he concentrated and concentrated, trying to make it move the sink water, but nothing happened.
Knowing it was too good to be true, he shut the faucet, dried his hands, and walked out of the room, failing to notice the mini typhoon he had created outside.
THE END
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